Well-known Photographer Gary Braasch: legend Behind-the-scenes

April 2, 2017

Gary Braasch is an environmental photojournalist and writer who documents nature, environment, biodiversity and global warming around the world. His images and assignment articles have been published by Time, LIFE, New York Times Magazine, Discover, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Scientific American and the United Nations among many others. Most recently, his image of the ill-fated Shell drilling rig Kulluk was the cover of NY Times Magazine (January 4, 2015). Beginning in June 2013 his images were on display for six months at the Boston Museum of Science in the one-person exhibition “Climate Change in Our World.” He was the principal photographer of the June 2014 G7 meeting printed program in the sections on the theme of Climate Change. Photographs of Mt St Helens volcano and time-series images of climate change are a feature of Annenberg Foundation’s “Essential Lens” teaching unit, released February 2015.

Gary has been a nature photographer for more than 40 years. His first professional marketing and photo sales were in the spring of 1974. Commentary and prime photographs from his career will appear through 2014 on this website home page and will be archived here.

He received the Ansel Adams Award from the Sierra Club and the Outstanding Nature Photographer citation from the North American Nature Photography Association. In 2010 he was named as one of the Forty Most Influential Nature Photographers by Outdoor Photography magazine. Gary Braasch is author of Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World, which Al Gore calls “essential reading for every citizen.” He is a founding executive committee member and Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers, and is a Nikon “Legend Behind the Lens.”

Gary Braasch’s central project since 2000 has been World View of Global Warming, which is the original dedicated photo documentation of the effects of rapid climate change. Gary was the first photojournalist who journeyed extensively, including to China, Australia, Tuvalu, Antarctica, the Arctic and the great mountains of the world, documenting climate science and the effects of change. This work continues into its second decade, with new emphasis on rephotographing rapid changes and on the solutions which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Gary’s comprehensive book Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World (University of California Press) was first published in 2007 and has been updated in a paperback edition and made into an e-book (2009-2010). Praise for this book has come from Al Gore, members of the Nobel Prize winning scientific community of the world, Vanity Fair, Nature, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Bill McKibben and Paul Hawken.

A well-known American photographer Gary Braasch, diving with a pipe, crashed against the Barrier Reef. He was 70 years old. Swimming and photography were his constant occupations in life. Now his camera is in the Australian Museum on the island of Lizard.

“He dived with a mask and pipe in the morning near the island of Lizard, when, according to eyewitnesses, he was seen floating down in the water,” the report said.

At the scene immediately called paramedics, but attempts to reanimate Gary were unsuccessful. The police reported on what happened to his family in the US and is now trying to understand the circumstances of this accident.

California poppy gives up pollen to a honeybee. Photographed in Portland garden with a single shot camera early in Gary Braasch’s career.

Four jews on Mount of Olives looking out over Old City wall and Dome of the Rock.

Geologist Don Peterson of the US Geological Survey confronts a rising plug of thick lava from the crater of Mount St Helens, during an assignment by Gary Braasch for Life magazine in 1984.

Ice Cave in remnant of Marr Ice Piedmont, Anvers Island, Antarctica. Photographed for World View of Global Warming. This part of the Marr has since melted away.

Devils Tower, a monolithic volcanic intrusion or plug eroded out of surrounding rocks in Wyoming. ~2 hour time exposure of western stars. Kodachrome original

Lenticular cloud formation over Mount Adams, Cascade Range Washington, on a mountaineering trip with Chip Greening, blown off our course by fierce winds we gave up the ascent but I got in two shots on Kodachrome looking up at a lenticular cloud deforming in the strong wind stream over the summit. Acclaimed from the first showing to friends in Portland.

Lily pads and reflected cypress trees, Highlands Hammock State Park, Florida, 1993. Coverage of the Everglades ecosystem included assignments for Life and Audubon. Photographed while under teaching contract with Palm Beach Photographic Workshops.

Caribou crossing the Kongakut River in Alaska on their long annual migration. Motion from long exposure with telephoto lens.

Slide Info: Reaching for the sun – c1983More info: A halo (also known as a nimbus, icebows, or Gloriole) is a ring of light that surrounds an object. Halos are optical phenomena that appear near or around the Sun or Moon, and sometimes near other strong light sources such as street lights. There are many types of optical halos, but they are mostly caused by ice crystals in cold cirrus clouds located high (5–10 km, or 3–6 miles) in the upper troposphere. The particular shape and orientation of the crystals is responsible for the type of halo observed. Light is reflected and refracted by the ice crystals and may split up into colors because of dispersion, similarly to the rainbow.

Pear orchard near Dundee Oregon under heavy snow. Published in a booklet designed by Chris Hill, which is in the Permanent Design Collection at the Library of Congress.

View from bridge back along the R/V Nathaniel Palmer ice breaker research vessel of the National Science Foundation, during Antarctic Peninsula scientific cruise about global warming effects. In Andvord Bay, Danko Coast, not far from the Palmer Station American scientific base.